Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The year is on its way out, a decade is. Jazz is playing on my stereo, I have a bit of a cold, and I am dressed in layers in my apartment, it a bit chilly, but there also that cold that I've already mentioned that is messing with my body temperature, that led me to call in sick to work today, and sleep in with a boy in my bed, this boy Jacob, and wake up late and eat breakfast sandwiches from the place across the street while watching Season 2 of "Skins." In some 30 odd hours, this year and decade will be done with. We will be living in the year 2010.

Again, I am aware with the passage of time more of my failings than of any accomplishments, am again already making resolutions, ones I have already made before, several times before actually. A few months ago, I set myself the goal of establishing a new web presence and writing this erotic travel guide/memoir that I have been outlining mentally all year. These two things were supposed to be completed before this year ended. They most definitely will not be. The web thing is slowly happening - there is at least tangible progress with that. The travel guide however has yet to even be started.

Looking back on this past year, I am hard pressed to say where it has all gone and what I have done with it. I moved around quite a bit, as much as I did when I first moved to New York and was getting settled, hopping from sublet to sublet. The year started with me residing in a gay boardinghouse on the southeast corner of Tompkins Square Park, a depressing living situation that became more so with each week, paying by the week and getting a new key each week, no real kitchen, and a heavy loneliness that weighed on the place. This time of my life also was when friendships seemingly became permanently upended and things shifted. The year started, New Year's Eve last year, with a gigantic fight with Gabriel. Soon after, he told me he did not want me helping him throw the Judy party and that effectively served to distance me from an entire circle of people that I had been close friends with, but whom would always talk about planning Judy parties with each other constantly, making them kind of unbearable to be around. There was distance between Diego and I at that point because of a new boyfriend. There was distance between Niki and I because of her kicking me out of our apartment and being the cause of why I ended up in the gay boardinghouse.

That first part of the year really sucked thinking back on it. I should go back and reread diary entries, try to see what life was actually like then, but in the interest of speed and of me getting out the door soon, we are going to continue with this narrative, trying to retrace what it is that occurred this year, what it is I did with myself. Somewhere in there was a trip to Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta and now in this cold weather, I am again looking at cheap flights to places south of this US border and dreaming of adventures in Spanish speaking places, dreaming of warmth, dreaming of beaches, dreaming of streetcar tacos. But we move on and did, moved to a place off the Bedford stop sometime in the spring. The change was nice, was a first step in some other direction. I didn't particularly like the living situation, roommates I never saw and a giant, unhomey apartment, but I liked the location, I liked the privacy, I liked having a kitchen and not switching out my keys each week and paying rent in cash to an obsese, older gay man who would make dirty jokes each time I saw him. Brooklyn felt more right. My time in Manhattan, I came to see as time in exile. There was a trip to Short Mountain for Beltaine somewhere there that was kind of terrible but did help me put a lot of things in perspective.

In August, I moved into this place I am now typing from, tiny little studio off the Morgan stop, an apartment to myself and joy became a bit more steady in my life. I painted the walls, got some furniture, and started to feel like I had a home again. The summer was spent at beaches and my favorite memories of this year are from those places - Sandy Hook, Riis, Fire Island, Provincetown - and I am looking forward to warmth's return and to those beaches again. Over the summer, I became good friends with Diego again, things blurry, me wanting something romantic, that not happening. Some other boys here and there throughout the year, but mainly him. A new boy now entering my life in this last month, Jacob, and me spending a lot of time with him, many nights getting stoned and drinking wine and cuddling and having fun sex and looking at each other a lot and this particular feeling having been absent for so long, that new feeling of having a crush and being into each other and sex with each other and it is quite wonderful right now.

And I have talked about houses, places I have lived, friendships I have burned through, and boys I have slept with, but the trouble is that I am thinking that that was all there was to this year and view that as problem. I am not sure why that should be a problem, that that is the life of a great many people. I am not mentioning great projects I have done or new work and that is because this year, 2009, did not see much of that. There was some middling dance party that I helped Ojay throw very briefly at Happy Ending but which I excused myself from after only a few short weeks, annoyed with the venue, with the work involved, with the straightness of it. There were a couple stories written, one of which I did actually read, but the output was so little compared to what the goals were that I can't help but feel disappointed about what I have done with this past year. There is a job that I work at, a fancypants hotel, that eats up a lot of my time and (I am convinced) eats up a good portion of my brain so that I don't have energy for much afterwards other than cocktails and food. These next few weeks are really going to involve a good deal of reconfiguring my life, of finishing this web stuff, of starting this travel guide, and of writing far more often.

In 2010, I resolve to write more, get a new job, cook more, run more, read more, have healthier relationships, travel more, to live more.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

I have a few short minutes to try to write things, have a deadline of a phone call happening soon, Jacob on his way to my house now. Last night, I met up with him at an SVA house party in Williamsburg. Lots of young kids in black drinking tall boys of beer and seeming very art school. I felt old, older than them, removed from whatever scene was happening. As some experiment in contemporary anthropology, I enjoyed the party. We left there, went to Adam's party - more my scene, Brooklyn homos past their mid-twenties. We started chatting with Diego. I told him to come back to my house with Jacob and I. He did. We fooled around and had sex and it was really quite lovely to have the both of them in my bed and to feel close with both of them in this nice, open way. This morning, I woke up really happy, saw that the three of us were cuddling and it made me quite happy. We woke up, had coffee, talked about the snow that was predicted.

I had brunch later today with Diego, Bob, and Nick, a Brazilian place. The snow started while we were eating. Some cocktails were had then. I went back to Diego's and lay in his bed with him watching the snow fall through his window, a church out his window, the backdrop to nature's display. We went to the West Village to go shopping for presents for family members, but ended up getting more cocktails at the quite lively for 3pm Boots and Saddles. And that was my day - not one present bought. I was soon wasted and wandering through snow with this boy I like, occasionally kissing him.

I came home, took a nap, and now am going to be homebound in this snow, a boy coming over, us going to get stoned and watch crap and cuddle and I am really loving the snow and these days and my relationships with people.

Unrelated to these thoughts and because there is that time limit here - no time to try to segue nicely between subjects - I saw Avatar in 3D yesterday and as a visual treat, it was pretty spectacular, the best 3D movie I've seen. I kind of want to go rewatch it really stoned. The film has these really strong pagan sentiments that were a bit weird to see argued for so forcefully in this Hollywood spectacular and there's a lot of not so subtle stuff about Native Americans and recent wars that the US has been involved in, all of which made the movie more interesting, more of an oddity, less of what I was expecting.

Friday, December 18, 2009

It's when I greet him at my door or when we walk out of it together in the morning that I notice it, his age, that I am aware of some striking difference between the two of us. When he is in my house though, this studio of four not too large walls in which my own reality rules, that difference seems not noticeable. We are often stoned and naked, making out, staring into his eyes with bossa nova music playing on 91.5, an hour of it for some reason. And I am not sure you can imagine it, not sure you get the same heartswollen feeling when you listen to bossa nova music, but the stuff is pure sentiment and tugs at my heartstrings and makes me weak in the knees about what it is to be alive on this planet at this time, but more so at any time - what an entirely weird and fragile little thing this is here, our existence for some period of time in this world. And something about bossa nova makes an awareness of that seem more present, that the music seems to be informed of those things, that this is music written from people profoundly aware of these things, experienced mystics accepting of these things, and so it is this beautiful and sad and loving and lamenting thing.

And so I was stoned last night and we were sitting on my couch drinking wine, and I was kind of thinking this boy was insanely beautiful, that his eyes were full of magic, and that I wanted to kiss him so much, make him aware through some tactile form of communication how it was I was feeling, how much I was feeling then, and a large part of that had to do with the music, some part of it had to do with the weed and the wine and the cold weather outside making the idea of cuddling up with a boy, some warmness against the frigid world outside the bubble of your couch, of his arms, making that idea, the idea of cuddling up with a boy seem so amazing - and so not even that makes up all what is happening here, not all the parts - some part of it was the eyes, the skin, the dopey expression on his face, something else. We kissed and kissed and eventually turned off the radio and started to watch a movie, The Big Lebowski, because I am kind of obsessed with the film and he had never seen it and his failure to have ever seen it struck me as outrageous, made me feel that there was some noticeable age difference here between the two of us, that someone my age would understand why this movie is so necessary on a list of films that you must see numerous times in your life, that this would be one of them, that he would know that, and so I insisted we watch it, me also a bit stoned and wanting to see this movie so bad during that moment.

This took us to my bed, laptop on my lap, and the two of us wrapped around each other. I have spend quite a few nights in a row now with this person, who I have decided I really need to stop referring to (even jokingly) as "the 19 year old," that that was the only real detail about this person I knew when he was just some person that came over to my house for sex from Grindr. But now he is Jacob, this nice sexy person that makes me feel really comfortable, and who I am beginning to like a little bit. I question it and wonder if it's real or what's going on here or what this feeling could stem from. I am a bit doubtful, and think that I am resisting liking this boy, holding back for a bit but that those self-restraints I had originally imposed are coming loose. It was a lovely and dirty night with him, sweaty fucking and gentle cuddling all night, and kind of everything I am looking for right now - a person that is into me physically and wants to sleep next to each other and get stoned and watch movies. It's kind of perfect and sort of everything I have always tried to push my relationships toward but have always failed at, and here it is right from the start. I also think I have forgotten what a new flirtation feels like, those first few dates with a boy, having been thinking things might happen with this one boy for a while and now trying to maybe move past that, but only kind of, and also why I am only kind of into this person, Jacob.

When I walked out of the door with him this morning, around 7, when I was leaving for work, his sweater was oversized, making him look tinier, younger. I saw some age difference, wanted some other bearded boy, my peer. And then today, I texted with Jacob and got giddy and there are ups and downs and swings from my thoughts of this person to that person to another person, to the two or three of them together, and me with them, and also thoughts about this threesome I have been trying to facilitate and really so many silly thoughts, pretty much all about boys. I turned my sheets inside out this afternoon when I got home from work, them kind of disgustingly dirty with sex stains. I could have taken them to the laundromat, done laundry, but I didn't want to, didn't want to be outside in this cold, and so instead will sleep on them, will drop them off at the laundromat tomorrow morning before I go try to find my family some Christmas presents and will pick it up later in the afternoon, clean sheets and towels and clothes in a bag all neatly folded, and me paying some monetary amount per pound of clothing for the pleasure of this task being taken care of by someone else.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Not too long ago, I was at Blackbird, drinking some wine and chatting with Bob and some other people. They were probably chatting at this particular moment I am describing, because it was a moment when I wasn't listening, wasn't really participating, was seated at the end of the table and so a bit out of the main dynamics of conversation, and anyways while drinking the wine, fingers near my nose, a whiff came my way of asshole, of this boy's, of Jacob's. The smell made me terribly happy, turned me on, and out of the conversation as I already was, I for a moment got lost in the recollection of the afternoon I spent with him.

He came over to shoot some photos of me jerking off for some photography project for school. That of course led to the two of us having sex. It started on my couch and because my lube was up in the corner of my lofted bed, I eventually moved him up in that direction. We fucked and kissed and came and then lay next to each other chatting, making out, kissing each other's necks for a long while. He had a paper to write and I had things I wanted to accomplish, food I wanted to eat, but we continued to lie there, continuing to kiss and stare at each other. And how quickly things can change. He had been just some fuck buddy from Grindr and over the course of this day became some person with other attributes. He now has a last name. He told me that I was in his phone as Charlie Grindr and I told him he was in mine as Jacob X. We painted in other details for each other, disclosed last names, sexual histories, daily habits, things, details from which to glean some idea of who a person is, or who they might possibly be. I am beginning to like this person. This is good and maybe not, because what does it mean to like someone when there is someone else you still kind of have your heart set on? What also does it mean to like someone so much younger, younger by nearly a decade, that how much connection can there actually be? All questions I do not know the answer to. I do know though that I spent a couple hours lying next to this person today getting really giddy looking into their eyes, feeling their naked skin pressed against mine. I do know that I feel and felt quite happy.

With each sip of the wine, I tried to place the smell, what particular things I was smelling, the pieces of his body, the pieces of mine. People talked and there was music playing and I kept finding myself in my bed, this person's body next to mine, their not-entirely-certain-of-what-this-person-across-from-me-might-be-thinking smile, their beautiful smile. The wine did things to my brain, these recollections did, and I felt quite comfortable there at that table, present somewhere in this world even if not there.

Friday night, I worked the elevator at this event, had thought I would be out of there by midnight, already had set in my mind the idea that I was going to have an amazing night filled with dancing and friends and perhaps excessive alcohol consumption, knowing that (as is often not the case) I would not have to be at work Saturday morning at 8, that that time would not be hovering in my mind as some warning to go to bed at a decent hour and not get wasted and not sleep over at some random person's house, to not even attempt for that. And so it was more than with a bit of annoyance and disappointment that I received the news that the party I was working had been extended until 1 and that I would be leaving until around 2.

At 2, I was on the move, my hours of night, of fun while bars are still open and people still at them, drastically cut now. On 14th Street, the entire block was filled with Latino families, all clustered around the Our Lady of Guadalupe church. On the sides of the sidewalk, vendors sold flashing and glowing things, flowers, t-shirts, food items. The atmosphere was insanely festive for the early or late hour and I kept on looking at all the children, wondering if they had woken up early or if they had stayed up this late. I also wondered what the day was being celebrated, wondered a lot, thought about the Virgin of Guadalupe, of seeing that cloak in my time in Mexico City, thought about how it must be to celebrate the day she appeared to that Mexican peasant, whose name I could not remember. I did not seek out confirmation of this, did not pause to ask anyone what the celebration was in celebration of. I had limited time and walked as fast through this crowd as I could to the subway, to a train that would take me to Brooklyn, to Bushwick specifically, Jefferson stop, a bar called Tandem, some gay party, some friends there.

I started pounding back whiskeys, danced a bit, and then filling somewhat of this night, of what Fridays mean to people, I sat at a table with Diego and this guy visiting town, Michael. I wanted to sleep with the both of them and was trying to make this happen, was suggesting that once the bar closed they should come over to my house. This suggestion seemed to be well-recieved and I thought it was going to happen, Michael and I having flirted before, having made out before. I am not exactly sure what occurred to derail these plans. I know that at the end of the bar's night, I made out with Michael, that Diego did not appreciate that, and that Diego, speaking for the both of them, said they were not coming over. Some other friends living not so close wanted to sleep over. I told them that I was perhaps going to be having sex, plans to call the 19 year old already in my head now, him earlier in the night telling him to call him no matter how late it was. They were fine with that and so these three and I walked back to my house and Jacob was already waiting at my door by the time we got there.

We drank vodka and smoked weed and listened to Queen and then people that Last.fm said sounded like Julieta Venegas. We read some Allen Ginsburg. Gage was passed out on my couch, cup of coffee in his hand. The hour was getting later in the night or earlier in the day and I could already see hints of dawn through my curtain. I said it was bedtime, turned off the lights, and the awake people, four of us, climbed into my lofted bed, somehow all fitting into it. I started to make out with Jacob, our underwear came off, and soon we started to give each other head, G and P next to us jerking off, touching each other. The night was a haze of being insanely horny and fucking this boy on and off again all night, doing so, passing out for a bit, and doing it again. There are bits I remember, that I have been recalling when jerking off since then, I recall G sucking Jacob's dick while we were fucking, I recall the shape of hands jerking off barely seen penises in the darkness, and I recall a penis wet with its own semen.

Once I finally cleared my house of the still-tired looking people yesterday afternoon, I met up with Diego, Michael, and Nick around 1 and followed them to some bars where we had some drinks. My body wasn't ready for it yet, wasn't as awake as it thought it was, and I soon headed back home, to lie in my bed and nap, and where I jerked off again and again, occupying physically the site of the memories I was jerking off to. Once I awoke last night, going out again seemed silly, seemed a bit much, since I had done nothing all day really, that to wake up and immediately go out to some bar and dance like a crazy person seemed a bit false, that that dancing should be some release to a day, to things that occurred throughout it, not some morning salutation. And so I read and listened to music and watched Larry David be an asshole to various people. I woke up early today, am feeling quite ready for things though I can't identify what those things are, the clouds outside my window make the day seem less inviting, make today seem like a movies and blankets type of day. Sonny Rollins is coming out of my speakers. Coffee is within reach of my left hand.

Friday, December 11, 2009

We had come back to my house, taken a cab from the East Village. I had promised to roast him some garlic. We got stoned instead and sat in my bed. Diego was going on and on about how he feels weird about how he is beginning to love Lady Gaga, and it's a thing I have heard a few friends say lately, that they are beginning to like this person a lot. Specifically, he was talking about the song "Dancer in the Dark" and how he had listened to it over and over again at the gym. He explained his reading of the song. I told him to play it for me. He played it for me on his phone's speakers. We continued to smoke weed while listening to the song, we were already drunk, having come back from some bar, and the intersection of the substances with the lateness of the evening with the setting of two boys in bed together talking about music made it all quite lovely, made me love this song also, though I wasn't sure I entirely got what the song was trying to say. I asked him if the song held any reference points to Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark." He didn't know.

My phone's speakers now put to use, the Boss playing this song. The song is sentimental, is beautiful, is full of expectation and excitement toward a night ahead, toward what nights mean in a life that is otherwise sad, toward the act of living. I started to kiss Diego in a way that was filled with all of these sentiments, this song and this boy near me making me quite giddy. We continued to kiss and to fool around, touching each other's bodies, as the song switched to another Bruce song and another, me failing to reach for my phone, buried somewhere now in my bed, to turn it off, and I'm not sure I have ever used Bruce as a soundtrack to making out, but it really works quite well, colored the actions I was participating in a mournful and exuberant light.

The temperature has dropped, below freezing last night and this morning, the weather invigorating but more so daunting, me not wanting to venture too far past my doorstep, past the heated comfort of my apartment. Last night, I went to Eastern Bloc, flirted with some boys, wanted to flirt with others and instead just made eyes at them, hoping that that would somehow lead to conversation, to making out, to sex, to holding hands. It didn't. The bar was quite crowded but filled with lots of button-down shirts (which, don't get me wrong, I love if they are fitted and interesting and somehow conveying a sense of dress-up), lots of people that I was not so sure about. The Pixie Harlots were dancing there and I kept chatting with some of them, dancing with some of them, and I realized I could be at a bar where it wasn't just the performers who were interesting, but rather the attendees of the bar and that I should head over to Mattachine. With this intention, I left the bar. Not even half a block away, I was ready to throw in the towel and headed to a pizza place to think about what I really wanted to do while I ate a slice. What I really wanted to do was to be warm and so I headed into a cab again - the subway seeming too far in the cold, Mattachine seeming even further, and yet me still occasionally wondering how I burn through money so quickly - and headed back home. I texted this 19 year old I have been sleeping with off of some silly iPhone app to come over. I started watching people from "The Jersey Shore" talking about themselves on mtv.com because my interest in trashy television that that station is capable of manufacturing has apparently not waned even as I near the age of 30. I was stoned and too drunk and told him I would probably pass out soon, that he should maybe not come over. He said he would be over in 20 minutes. I stayed up and waited a bit, that time limit. This morning I see from texts that he had come back to our neighborhood but that I was asleep by then.

The year is 2009. In a few short weeks (just think of how short these past nine years have been), we will be in another decade. There are technologies that enable me to meet gay men based on their proximity in feet to where I am. I can chat with them and depending on our horniness and our levels of attraction to a random picture we have decided to choose to represent ourselves with on the site, can meet up. Sometimes our horniness will be at such a level that our thresholds for what we consider attractive fall quite a bit. I can talk about music with a boy in my bed and we can mention a specific song and he can hum it for me or just as easily he can pull the thing up on his phone and play it over its speakers. There is coffee that is still brewed in ways my grandmom would be familiar with and the feelings that boys give me seem somehow not dependent upon this particular year, this moment in time. It is quite cold outside and I dress myself in layers, in a scarf, in a hat, and in a jacket, just as my mother taught me to when leaving for school in the morning as a child.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Some snow fell today, the first of this winter. Normally, this inspires in me some warmth, some awe, some appreciation for the workings of this world and the cyclical nature of seasons. Today, however, because the snow came scattered in between freezing rain and slushy droplets, it was missing some of its magic. My boots were soaked through, my jeans were quite wet, and my umbrella was falling more and more apart. I had wandered around the garment district with Erica this afternoon, looking for fabric, looking for something shiny to make into an outfit for my job's holiday party tomorrow.

Much of my life now seems to be consumed with this, of there being some party coming up that seems quite fun, maybe not even a party, maybe just an opening, a reading, and there being my desire to play dress up, to wear something fun, to assemble an outfit of thrift store finds, out of fabrics from Spandex World, out of constructions Diego has made me for. This, I am beginning to think, may be a bit of a problem, that dressing up is all well and fine, but when it begins to consume so much of your already limited time in this city, then something might be wrong. There are some priorities that be a bit out of whack. It is not infrequent that I wonder what feats I may have accomplished already with writing were I too put something close to the same amount of effort and time into that as I do into looking for clothes, scavenging thrift stores, and getting ready to go out places.

Last night, I went to a masquerade party on a boat for Brian and Schaffer's birthday party. The boat cruised down the East River, pushing off from 23rd Street, floating past the warehouses of the Williamsburg waterfront, underneath various bridges, all quite beautiful looking, to the tip of the island of Manhattan in sight of the Statue of Liberty, and then back up to where we came from. People were quite dressed lovely, the call to play dress-up heeded by everyone - and the refrain "look good, feel good" my de facto response when I think about dressing up, whenever I (or someone else) questions my dressing habits. My relationship with clothing has shifted so much over the years, from being comfortable wearing just about anything, most of it ill fitting stuff that I now think is boring and ugly when I look at pictures of my self from high school and college. There was even a hostility toward people hyper-fashion oriented, to being so obsessed with their self-presentation, with what they wore. Now, though the pleasure of wearing things that make you look good is a pleasure I am more and more drawn to, the comfort of a tight button down shirt, tight jeans, and dress shoes something that gives me not only pleasure, but from that, some confidence of a sort, feeling more at ease in this world, more aware that it's all about playing roles in this world and the quickest way (the laziest maybe?) to convey a character is to dress the part, and I don't know where I am going with this - I was talking about a boat party.

The party was quite fun. I made out with one boy a lot on the dancefloor, kissed another one's chest, this boy I am kind of insanely attracted to, and talked to several of my coworkers who were at this party as well, feeling slightly awkward after I had been rubbing boners with this one boy on the dancefloor, and then turned around to see some coworkers I didn't know that well right there. I got to know these coworkers better though after the party, headed down with them and Ethan and Bob to Eastern Bloc, where I was witness to some making out, and then participant in some making out, doing so with one of my coworkers, this beautiful boy who I have had a slight crush on for months, admiring him but knowing that nothing would come from that admiration as he had a boyfriend. There was some moment last night after lots of talking with each other, after a bit of eye-flirting, that we started to kiss, and it continued, the kissing, to another bar, Nowhere, and we talked about our sexual fetishes, things that turn us on, and made plans to sleep together some future night when not as wasted. I am not sure if that is to happen. I am not sure if anything is to happen in this world. Snow generally does fall every winter - there is certainty in that. That, perhaps, is the joy we get from that first snowfall, a sigh of relief, that things still are to happen at certain times, that we can count on some things.

Friday, December 4, 2009

I slept next to Diego last night, slept in his bed, cuddling with him and kissing him throughout the night, so attracted to this person. I had met up with him at Eastern Bloc earlier in the night and we had had drinks and danced to various songs and at some point talked about things, him telling me that he didn't want to have sex with me anymore because he felt we were too fragile, me telling him that I wanted to continue to have sex with him, that I loved doing so. I talked about my feelings, he talked about his. A better understanding was reached or seemingly so.

We slept together naked and did not have sex despite my best efforts. I was kicked out this morning so he could go to the gym. I went home and we met up a few hours later and went to some sample sale in SoHo and then wandered around town, making our way to the Halloween store so I could purchase a mask. It was a nice and friendly day and night with him, and it has calmed me a great deal, things again feeling comfortable to me. sLater in the afternoon today, I went to midtown and saw this John who had contacted me. He was staying at a fancy hotel on Madison Avenue. He had a wedding band on. When I was jerking off over him, I saw his shirt buttons, the detailing on them, "Brooks Brothers" engraved into each button, a detail I had never noticed about Brooks Brothers shirts before, me looking at them rather than looking at this man in this face, this man who said he wanted to be my slave and who was a boring lay and who gave me specific guided instructions in how he liked to be jerked off. I followed his instructions and he came pretty quickly. I was out of there early with a nice sum of cash. He rode the elevator down with me because he wanted to go get something to eat and didn't want to pay $25 for two slices of pizza from room service. This man clearly had money to be staying here and to be paying me a pricey sum for half an hour or so just to get off and yet something about the cost of room service irritated this man to the point that he would go outside in midtown to find a pizza place instead. This was about the only thing we talked about. I have no sense of this man, don't know his name, where he's from, anything really, other than how he wants someone to jerk him off and that he is offended by pricey room service.

I headed down to the Lower East Side to go to the "Brother, My Lover" reading series at Envoy. As had been the case every time I have gone, there were some really lovely pieces that I enjoyed. I got quite drunk off the free wine on offer and toward the end of the reading, the guy next to me started rubbing my foot and because I didn't say anything he took that as a sign that he could rub further up my leg and feel my crotch. He then whispered to me that he was going downstairs to the bathroom and that he wanted to see me soon. I said okay, and he left, perhaps thinking I would soon be following him, but I had more room now to stretch out my legs, did so, and enjoyed the last reading, this pro-femme piece about a cult of Trisha - maybe my favorite thing of the evening.

I chatted with some folks outside until I got bored, until I wanted to hear Wilco more than I wanted to hear them, and said bye, put on my headphones and listened to "I'll Fight" as I walked uptown.___________________________

Tuesday night, I saw Cate Blanchett starring in "A Streetcar Named Desire" at BAM, in a production directed by Liv Ullman. It was a thrilling piece of theater, lit magically, and excellently performed. It was a near-perfect production. I have been seeing a lot of theater lately and none of it really standing out much in my mind. This, however, was fantastic.

And so what a thrill to see another fantastic production last night as well. I saw Manhattan Theater Club's production of "The Royal Family," and liked it perhaps even more than Streetcar. It closes in a week or so and so if you live in New York, I really recommend seeing it. It is loosely based on the Barrymores and is a portrait of this wacky family of actors, the Cavendishes. The love of theater that is woven through the play is really touching, as it is to see this family committed to the craft of acting above all else, even above domestic happiness. It's a big ensemble cast and each member brings something special to the proceedings, everyone allowed to camp it up a bit since they are playing these dramatic personas, stars of the stage when there was such a thing, right as film is taking off as a medium.

So many other things to see! The list of plays I want to see is about as long as it's ever been and this month is probably going to involve a great deal of theater to try to trim this list down a bit.